


All hallows eve

by FixaIdea



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: ...I mean I always think of him as such, Canon Era, Gen, Ghosts, Halloween, Jewish Feuilly, it's just not worth tagging when it isn't mentioned even in passing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 06:26:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12451495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FixaIdea/pseuds/FixaIdea
Summary: All Feuilly wanted was to spend a quiet night in. This nice plan flies right out the window when a terrified Bahorel bursts through his door.





	All hallows eve

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Feuilly Week on Tumblr, beta'd by the wonderful Oilan.

It was a damp, misty October night and Feuilly was ready to settle in with a nice cup of tea and finally catch up on his reading. The week has been long and tiresome even by his usual standards, but for now he could finally rest. He may not have been particularly devout himself, but he was glad for the Shabbat and observed it whenever he could. Thankfully his current boss shared his faith, which meant he could do so in peace.

Done with his religious reading, he’d just managed to build himself a cocoon of blankets and pull a fat book on the history of the Czech people onto his lap when he noticed the noise of running feet from outside.

He shook his head – living in a basement room meant he was always clearly informed, quite against his will, of all the little going-ons of the street. The runner was approaching fast, clearly distinguishable against the silence of the night.

Not a moment later someone started pounding on Feuilly’s door.

‘Feuilly! FEUILLY! I know you’re in, open up! FEUILLY!’

It was Bahorel, his deep, rumbling voice unmistakeable. Feuilly sighed, vexed but resigned, and slowly peeled himself out of his blankets. The knocking intensified, shaking his rickety door.

‘I’m coming, I coming! No need to bring down the door’ he called. The hammering ceased, but the moment he opened up Bahorel pushed his way in, slammed the door shut and pressed his back against it.

Feuilly frowned. His friend, usually so fearless and bold seemed to be shaken to the core. Sweat was beading on his brow, he was surveying the tiny flat with a wild, terrified look and his hands, pressed flat against the door, were shaking . Feuilly reached out and carefully took him by the arm, trying not to spook him any further. He led him to his bed – which always doubled as a sofa when he had visitors – and gently pushed him down on it. Bahorel went without protests, still shooting suspicious glances at the door.

‘What’s going on?’

Bahorel looked up at him from under his bushy eyebrows and then quickly averted his gaze. It seemed like he was trying to fold his huge body into the smallest ball possible.

‘I’m being followed.’

This, in and of itself, wasn’t anything monumental. Both Bahorel and Feuilly were, after all, parts of a republican revolutionary group and as such regularly had to deal with throwing off police informants. Also, all Parisian citizens were conscious of the danger posed by pickpockets and all sorts of shady characters. None of this had fazed Bahorel before.

When Feuilly pointed this out to him, the man just shook his head, staring off into the distance.

‘It’s a ghost.’

‘A _what_ now?’

‘A ghost, I’m telling you!’ Bahorel yelled, gesturing wildly. He took a deep breath, threw a glance out the small, murky window and went on in a low, strained voice. ‘I had a rendezvous with a potential ally in the ruined Saint-Germain-des-Prés church, a funny place for a Republican meeting in the first place…’ he trailed off, massaging his temples.

‘It may have been picked for symbolic value. The church was gutted during the Revolution, was it not? Anyway, how did the meeting go?’

‘The bloke was a no-show. I spent about an hour waiting for him in that dreadful, crumbling place! The fog was seeping in from the outside, I could barely see a thing! And then.  Then I spotted something where the altar used to be. Like I said I could barely see a thing, I wouldn’t have noticed it, were it not moving… Of course I thought it was the fellow I was meant to meet, so I approached it…’

He drew a shaky breath.

‘It was floating, Feuilly! I couldn’t get a good look at it, but this I know: It was a human-shaped, dark thing, and it floated across the chancel. I- You know I’m afraid of no man, but by God, Feuilly, I can’t abide by ghosts! I ran. Shameful or not, I ran. ’

‘And you think it followed you?’

‘I don’t think, I know! Whenever I stopped to catch my breath it was there, just across the street, or just a corner behind me!’

Feuilly hung his head, deep in thought. Bahorel’s words were alarming, even if the explanation for what he saw was something natural, after all. He undoubtedly disturbed someone at the old church, and someone – be it the same entity or someone else – followed him all the way here. He was about to say so to Bahorel when he spotted something from the corner of his eye. Something moved at his window.

Bahorel noticed his sudden change of expression and shot up to see what he was looking at – colliding with Feuilly in doing so, nearly toppling them both over. Feuilly grabbed at him instinctively, steadying them, which left them clinging to each other, staring at the window like a pair of spooked children.

The window was empty.

‘What was it? What did you see?’ Bahorel asked in a hoarse whisper.

‘I’m not sure’ said Feuilly ‘Some dark blotch moved across the window. Probably a cat.’

‘Or maybe a passer-by?’ Bahorel supplied hopefully.

‘No- I would have heard his steps. I always do.’

Bahorel let go of Feuilly and squared his shoulders.

‘Very well. If it wants to play, let it come, we’ll be prepared! Grab a Bible!’

Feuilly leveled an incredulous stare at him.

‘Friend Bahorel. You’ve known me for – how many years exactly?’

‘Uhh five? I think? Why?’

‘And during those five years you somehow failed to notice that I’m Jewish?’

‘What does that have to do with- Oh. I see. No Bible, then.’

‘No. And before you ask, no, I’m not letting you use the Tanakh to whack thieves and informants. Anyway, you’d be much better served by ‘ _The Encyclopaedia of Medieval and Modern Weaponry in Europe and Asia_ ’, which is the fattest book currently in my flat but it belongs to Combeferre who I’m sure wouldn’t be ecstatic if we…’

‘FEUILLY, WHICH PART OF ‘THE THING FLOATS’ DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?! This isn’t a human, I’m telling you!’  
  
‘There now, no need to panic. The night is dark and foggy. It  is entirely possible that your eyes have deceived you. Here, let me take a look, see if it’s still around.’

He peeled the desperately protesting Bahorel’s hands off of himself and opened the door.

And slammed it close with the same breath.

‘Is it there?!’

Feuilly tried to answer, but his voice has relocated from his throat to the back of his mind, where it busied itself with inarticulate screaming – so he merely nodded.

Something was truly out there. Something dark and vaguely human-shaped, floating at the top of the stairs leading down to Feuilly’s door.

‘So’ said Bahorel gravely ‘What do we do now?’

Feuilly stared at him.

‘How should I know? Look, I have plans for a large number of ways things could go pear-shaped’ he said, hysterical laughter bubbling up in his chest ‘I mean even more _Pear_ -shaped*  than they are right now, but learning how to fend off dybbuks has SOMEHOW never been on my list of priorities! _You_ on the other hand are best friends with our resident spiritual expert. If anyone has a chance of working out a solution, it’s you!’

Bahorel nodded, forlornly worrying the hem of his coat-sleeve.

‘The problem is that our dear Jehan is rather more interested in communing with spirits than keeping them away. Also I can’t think of anything that doesn’t involve holy water.’

Feuilly pondered the idea.

‘I can boil some water. Maybe you could chant over it and pretend to be a priest? And do it loud enough for the spirit to hear?’

‘Somehow I doubt it would be deterred.’

‘True.’

Feuilly leant against the door. Very well, if channelling Jehan didn’t work, they might as well try the polar opposite. What would _Enjolras_ do? He’d keep his cool and assess every detail of the situation and act accordingly.

‘So’ said Feuilly out loud ‘What do we know for certain? We know that something followed you here all the way from Saint-Germain-des-Prés. We know that you’ve been here for about ten to twenty minutes now. This thing didn’t need that long to catch up to you because, as you say, it has never been further than a corner behind you. So the most important question is: Why did it not follow you inside?’

Bahorel, calmer now that he had something to work out, rubbed his stubbly chin.

‘Could be because it’s biding its time. Either that, or it _can’t_ come in.’

‘Somehow I doubt it’d be the first possibility. Why would my presence protect you? Does it only prey on those who are alone? In that case, why let me see it? Why not lull you into a false sense of security and take you when you leave my room?  Either way, let’s focus on the second prospect. If it cannot come in, why is that? My flat isn’t protected by any sort of special spell. Not to my knowledge anyway.’

Bahorel stood and paced around the room.

‘So what you’re saying is that it hasn’t come in and attacked me yet because it physically cannot.’

‘Exactly. And why could that be.’

Bahorel clapped his hands together.

‘It has a physical form! Whatever it is, it’s too solid to move through walls.’

‘Just so. And in that case…’

Without finishing the sentence Feuilly snatched up a piece of firewood from beside the stove and before Bahorel could stop him he threw the door open and chucked the log at the floating shadow.

It fell down onto the steps with a loud clatter. Feuilly sprang at it, pinning it to the ground with his foot, picking up the piece of wood, ready to use it as a club should the need arise.

It didn’t. The spectre turned out to be an old black coat. The noise it made when it fell was caused by a coat-hanger, which Feuilly held up to show Bahorel.

Having made sure they were in no immediate danger Feuilly looked around to see where the coat came from. When he looked up… his eyes met those of a grinning but visibly nervous Grantaire.

Feuilly let out an explosive sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. He mounted the stairs with two long steps. Now that he could see past the walls flanking the stairs, he was met with the sight of Lesgle, Joly and Grantaire, frozen in place, smiles still plastered to their faces but quickly developing a certain anxious air. Joly was holding a long piece of string, the other end of which was tied to a rake. The rake was held by Grantaire, in a way that allowed them to dangle the coat in front of Feuilly’s door.  
 

‘Of course it’s you three. I don’t know what I was exp…’

He couldn’t finish because Bahorel burst out of the flat, face redder than his waistcoat, already screaming.

‘Is that what you call funny, is it you swines?! Oh just let me lay my hands on you, you’ll think twice before you pull something like this again you scoundrels, you-’

‘Come now, Bahorel’ said Grantaire, holding up his hands in a placating manner, but unable to contain his mirth ‘Surely you had to see this coming after what you pulled on Joly!’

Bahorel had nothing to say to that, so he opted for indignantly opening and closing his mouth a couple of times, like a particularly affronted fish. Feuilly seized his chance to cut in.

‘Look, I don’t much care if Bahorel deserved it, but I thought _we_ had an agreement about pranks.’

The other three had the decency to look somewhat chastised at that. It was indeed well known that Feuilly belonged to the section of Les Amis that didn’t take kindly to practical jokes and wished never to be a part of them - a fact usually respected.  
  


‘In our defense’ said Lesgle, who suddenly found his shoes mighty interesting ‘The target was Bahorel, and we couldn’t possibly know in advance that he’d run to you.’

Feuilly shook his head in fond exasperation.

‘Well then. Why don’t you come in and explain how you did it? It’s cold out here.’

This suggestion successfully diffused the situation as Bahorel grudgingly admitted to also wanting to hear the explanation. The five friends all filed back into the small room. Lesgle, Joly and Grantaire took a seat on the bed, Feuilly on his one chair, Bahorel on the floor, by the stove. Grantaire, to the surprise of no one, had a flask on him, which he passed around. Thus mellowed, Bahorel and Feuilly were ready to hear the full story.

‘So as you must have guessed by know, the contact Bahorel was meant to meet never existed.’ Lesgle started ‘We made him up and scheduled a meeting with him in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. It was essential to have Bahorel go there only after sundown, otherwise he might have spotted us and our preparations. All of which were easy but, if I might say so, ingenious. We hung up a cloth line across the chancel. I was hiding behind a statue, with the coat, waiting. I let Bahorel wait for his supposed contact for a long while, then moved a little just to get his attention. When I saw him approaching, I hung the coat up on the hanger, and let it slide across the church on the cloth line.’

He threw his head back and laughed.

‘Feuilly, friend, you should have seen his face!’

What Feuilly _did_ see was Bahorel growling and fidgeting, so he quickly cut in.

‘That is clear, but how did you make the coat float all the way across Paris? You said yourself you didn’t know which way he would go, you couldn’t have set up strings in advance!’

‘Ah, you see’ said Lesgle with a proud smile ‘We didn’t need to make it actually float. That was Joly dressed up, with these clever mufflers on his feet’ he gestured at Joly’s feet, which were neatly bundled in rags, so his steps would not make a noise ‘Bahorel already thought the thing was floating, the darkness and fog were enough to mask the truth! His own mind did most of the job for us!’

Even Bahorel had to admit it was clever. With that the prank was forgiven  and the conversation gradually turned into friendly chatter.

When they left, a couple of hours later, Feuilly waved them off from the top of his stairs with a fond smile. His evening may have turned out to be the exact opposite of how he wanted to spend it, but he couldn’t find it in himself to mind – not one bit.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> *In contemporary political cartoons King Louis Philippe was often depicted as a pear.


End file.
